


road rage

by ArsenicInYourPudding



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Gen, Ronan Lynch & Blue Sargent Friendship, blue gets hurt, ronan handles this about as delicately as you'd expect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-04
Updated: 2015-09-04
Packaged: 2018-04-19 00:55:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4726706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArsenicInYourPudding/pseuds/ArsenicInYourPudding
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Adam’s working, Gansey’s off being The Third God only knows where, and everyone else was busy being either carless or dead. So Calla called me.” </p>
<p>“You don’t answer your phone.” </p>
<p>“I do when it’s Calla,” Ronan sniffs. “She only ever calls me if someone’s missing or dead. You know, important stuff.” </p>
<p>Blue isn’t sure her safety or well-being has ever counted as important to Ronan, enough to warrant him paying attention to his cell phone. The notion is almost laughable. “What did she tell you?” </p>
<p>“Just that you were stuck at the gas station on Route 23 and sounded like you might need medical attention. Something about your bike eating it?”</p>
<p>“I really don’t want to talk about my bike,” she cringes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	road rage

The BMW that pulls into the gas station parking lot is suspicious. Blue stares at it, twisting the lid back on her Strawberry Fanta - it’s not that it’s an unfamiliar vehicle, even if it is particularly threatening. Perhaps, the fact that she  _ knows  _ the driver is what makes it so. The engine purrs down to silence, and after a beat, the driver’s door flies open. 

“You’re not Calla,” Blue calls across the dusk gathering in the corners of the crumbling patch of asphalt.

“Damn right,” Ronan calls back. He slams the car door and strides over in a business-like fashion to where she’s sitting on the steps of the porch, squatting down in front of her and taking her face in his hands. His fingers are cool and dry against her face as he turns her head first one way, and then the other, inspecting for damage. He bends her head forward and his fingertips slide through her hair, pressing and probing until they find the knot on the back of her head. She hisses and shakes him off, giving him a baleful look as she leans back away from him. His hands drop to his knees. “What the fuck, Blue?”

“ Oh sure,” she says sarcastically, unscrewing the lid on her soda again. “Make it  _ my  _ fault.”

He rolls his eyes at her, lifting his hands so they’re palm up over her knees. Blue pointedly takes a slow, leisurely sip of her soda and takes her time replacing the cap before setting on the step next to her. She sets her palms against his, and his fingers curl around her wrists so as he stands, he pulls her with him. The sudden change in altitude makes Blue’s head spin a little, and she pulls away from him to press a hand to her forehead, closing her eyes.

“Hey,” Ronan says, setting a hand against her back to steady her after retrieving her soda. “You gonna make it?”

“Yes,” Blue tells him firmly, blinking a few times in a vain attempt to clear the dark spots from the edges of her vision, “much to your displeasure, I’m sure.”

Ronan doesn’t say anything, but his hand moves from flat against her back to wrapped around her opposite arm, tucking her neatly into his side. He guides her across the parking lot to the passenger side of the BMW, pulling the door open and helping her slide down into the seat. “I’ll be right back,” he promises solemnly, and waits for her to nod before shutting the door and jogging back into the gas station. Blue closes her eyes as he vanishes behind a grimy glass door and leans her head back against the soft leather of the headrest, breathing carefully through bruised ribs. She doesn’t doze off, but when the driver’s side door rips open and she opens her eyes to find Ronan sliding into the driver’s seat with a plastic bag, looking at her with unbanked concern, she realizes she has no idea how much time has passed. “What,” she demands, “why are you looking at me like that?”

“I’m taking you to the hospital,” he announces, pulling a small package out of the bag and peeling the cardboard backing off. Two smaller foil packets fall out, and he sets one in the cupholder and rips the other open. “Here, take these.”

“I don’t think so,” Blue protests.

He glares at her. “They’re just  _ Tylenol _ , god Blue--”

She takes the packet and empties two gel caps into her palm, popping them in her mouth and draining the last of her Fanta with a pointed,  _ Happy now?  _ look. “I  _ meant  _ about the hospital. Just take me home.”

“You have a concussion,” he says angrily. “I know what I’m talking about.” He shoves the keys into the ignition and twists it with perhaps more force than necessary, and the engine grumbles in agreement with him. “Here, give me those.”

Mutely, Blue hands him the empty plastic bottle and the torn foil packet, and he chucks both unceremoniously into the backseat. “Seatbelt,” she reminds him automatically as he reaches for the gearshift, and Ronan gives her a scathing look even as he clicks the belt into place. “I’m fine, Ronan. I don’t need to go to the hospital.”

“ For the  _ love  _ of--  _ Humor  _ me,” he snaps, fishtailing out of the parking lot and speeding up to an even 20 miles above the speed limit. “If you die, and Gansey finds out it’s because you had some kind of brain bleed that I didn’t make you go to the hospital about, I will  _ never  _ hear the end of it. He will beat me to death with his car, and then bring it up in my eulogy how I let you die.  _ Humor me _ .”

“Compromise - there’s a free clinic out by Adam’s old place,” Blue mumbles, leaning her head back and closing her eyes.

His hand shoots out and jostles her shoulder. Blue whines and lurches toward the window, her ribs sore from the sudden movement. “Don’t fall asleep on me, Blue,” he says, his tone more worried than warning.

Blue grumbles at him. “I heard that was a myth.”

“Not risking it,” Ronan insists, returning his hand to the wheel. Impulsively, Blue sticks her tongue out at him.

“Why are you even here,” she asks, settling into the seat angled away from him. The cold glass of the window feels soothing through her hair.

He glances at her, one razor sharp eyebrow raised. “Well, when a man and a wo--”

“ _ God _ , you had to go there,” Blue groans. “And you know damn well what I meant. Why didn’t Calla call Adam or someone?”

“ Adam’s working, Gansey’s off being  _ The Third  _ God only knows where, and everyone else was busy being either carless or dead,” Ronan says, and Blue half expects Noah to pop up in the backseat at the flippant way he says  _ dead _ . “So Calla called me.”

“You don’t answer your phone.”

“ I do when it’s  _ Calla _ ,” Ronan sniffs. “She only ever calls me if someone’s missing or dead. You know, important stuff.”

Blue isn’t sure her safety or well-being has ever counted as  _ important  _ to Ronan, enough to warrant him paying attention to his cell phone. The notion is almost laughable. “What did she tell you?”

Ronan shrugs, one hand slipping off the wheel so he can brace his elbow where the window disappeared into the rest of the driver’s door. “Just that you were stuck at the gas station on Route 23 and sounded like you might need medical attention. Something about your bike eating it?”

“I really don’t want to talk about my bike,” she cringes. Her mind’s eye conjures the sad, bent remains of the frame laying in a dry creek bed that ran adjacent to the road a mile or so away from the gas station. No telling what she’ll have to save up to buy a new one. “Some jackass thought it’d be funny to try to hit me with his car. He missed, but I still ended up rolling eight feet down a creek bank and hitting my head.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Blue sees Ronan twist sharply, and she flinches, thinking he was going to jerk the wheel around with him. “They did  _ what _ ,” he snaps, furious and appalled. “What kind of car was it?”

Blue makes a  _ How the hell should I know?  _ face at him and waves a hand in front of her. “It was-- Green, I guess? Looked like the-- Whatshisname’s car. Harry or Henry or something.”

“Henry Cheng?” Ronan squints over the steering wheel. “White Fisker Karma?”

“ I don’t know,” Blue says impatiently, “it was trying to  _ kill  _ me, I didn’t exactly make them stop so I could kick the tires. All I know is it kind of looked like the same kind of car, but green.”

Ronan makes an irritable sound in his throat that sounds eerily reminiscent of Chainsaw getting upset with someone. “Yeah, because  _ that’s  _ helpful.”

“ Oh, well  _ excuse  _ me for not getting the license plate number for you. You know what, you missed the turn for the clinic so just take me home.”

The interior of the car settles into a thick, antagonistic silence. Blue folds her arms and lays her head against the window, until she sees the turn that they need to take to get to Fox Way slip by in the growing dark. “Hey,” she says, sitting up. “You kidnapping me, Lynch?”

He doesn’t rise to the bait. “Hospital, remember,” he says, glancing at her with an appraising look.

“ I  _ said  _ no. I’m  _ fine _ , and I don’t need to waste a thousand bucks just for someone to tell me that I’m fine.”

“Yeah, and where did you get your MD from, huh Sargent? I’m telling you, I’m not fucking around with a concussion. So either you can bitch the whole way, or just shut up and let me drive, because it’s happening either way.”

Blue frowns at him. “Ronan. My family  _ can’t  _ _ afford  _ that right now. I’m not actively dying, I’ll be fine, just take me  _ home _ .”

Ronan jerks around to look at her. “Oh my  _ god _ , is  _ that  _ what you’re worried about?” He digs his wallet out of his pocket and flaps it around between his thumb and first two fingers. “See this? It has these little bits of plastic in it, that let me do things like make sure my friends aren’t going to die from head trauma. There, problem solved, now shut up.”

Startled, Blue sinks back in her seat and lets him drive in silence to the ER entrance of the local hospital. Her knee is throbbing by the time Ronan helps her out of the passenger seat, and she leans against him as he guides her into the bright lights of the waiting room. He seems alarmingly familiar with intake paperwork in a way that doesn’t at all surprise Blue, taking the clipboard back once she’s filled out the patient information sheet. He dumps his cell phone in her lap and flicks the pen across his fingers. “Call Gansey for me,” he commands, flipping to the insurance form, and she’s so muddled by the whole thing that she does.

“ Dick Gansey,” he answers smoothly after three rings, his accent subtly more rounded and polished than it was when he was around them. It’s odd - normally he answers with a simple  _ Hello? _ \- and that’s when Blue remembers he had A Thing tonight.

“Uh, hi,” she says awkwardly, casting an uncomfortable glance at Ronan sprawled in the seat next to her, one ankle propped up on his knee to create a makeshift easel for the clipboard in his lap. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were busy. Ronan wanted me to call you, I have no idea why.”

“Tell him what happened,” Ronan urges, waving the pen at her.

“ What--  _ No _ , that’s a terrible idea, we’re not doing that.”

Gansey clears his throat, and the background murmurs of a swanky party in full swing disappear. “What are we not doing?”

“It’s--”

Ronan reaches across her for the phone and pulls it just far enough away from her face to say, rather loudly, “Blue got hit by a car!”

Blue splutters and fumbles with the cell phone, leaning away from him and clutching it protectively to her ear again. “What,” Gansey demands, sounding appalled. “Blue, are you alright?”

_ Oh, god he called me Blue, this is bad _ , she cringes. “Yes, I’m fine, I didn’t  _ really  _ get hit by a car. Well, I. Almost, I  _ almost  _ got hit by a car. It didn’t make contact, just ran me off the road. I’m fine.”

Gansey does not sound placated in the least. “Jesus, where are you? What’s going on?”

Blue sighs. “We’re at the hospital, Ronan thinks I have a concussion. I maintain that I’ll be fine, just a bad goose egg is all.”

“Tell him about the car,” Ronan encourages.

“ Do  _ you  _ want to talk to him,” Blue asks pointedly.

“Nah, I’m good,” he says, scribbling something down on the form.

Blue shoots him a dirty look. “Ronan feels you need to know about the car.”

“What car, the car that hit you?”

“ _ Almost  _ hit me. I didn’t get a good look at it, but it looked like Henry Cheng’s car, but in green. Ronan is pissed I didn’t get the license plate.”

“You have my full permission and blessing to hit him, not that you need it,” Gansey says graciously.

“I may take you up on that,” she mutters as Ronan signs the bottom of the form with a flourish and hops up to deliver the paperwork back to the nurse’s station. “Sound like anyone you know?”

“ If it  _ was  _ an Aglionby student, it’s likely one of two people,” Gansey says, sounding troubled. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

Blue rolls her eyes. “My bike took more damage than I did. I’ll be okay, I promise.”

“I can come back down tonight, if you want me to?”

For a brief second, the idea of having Gansey, concerned and doting, has a certain appeal to her, and then she shakes her head. “No, don’t get in trouble with your mom on my account. Unless you  _ really _ need an excuse to leave that party.” Gansey hesitates for a second. “Really,” Blue says gently, “I’ve got Ronan. I’ll be fine.”

“Two sentences that may never have been uttered in sequence in all of human history,” Gansey mutters, and Blue laughs.

“I’m sure there have been other Ronans who were perfect gentlemen.”

Ronan strolls back, and inexplicably, something about his jeans and tank top drags the words  _ desert hooker  _ to the front of Blue’s mind. “Well,” he asks, dropping into the seat next to her.

“He says it could be one of two people, if it’s someone from Aglionby,” Blue says helpfully. “He also doesn’t trust you to be civil if left alone with me for more than five minutes.”

“He’s a smart man,” Ronan agrees. “I am indeed the bottom of the barrel. But here we are, desperate times and all that.”

A nurse appears from a hallway behind the desk and waves Blue toward her. “Looks like I’m up,” she tells Gansey. “I’ll call you when they convince Ronan I’m not going to die. Say hi to Helen for me?”

“I will. Keep me posted, Jane,” he says, and Blue breathes a sigh of relief as she hangs up and passes the phone back to Ronan.

He stands, pockets the phone, and helps her up. They limp across the waiting room to the nurse loitering in the hallway, and she gives Blue a bored, sympathetic smile. “What happened here, now?”

 


End file.
